ASSOCIATION BETWEEN BLOOD GROUPS AND COVID-19 OUTCOME CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first started as an epidemic in Wuhan city – China in 2019 then became a pandemic. Certain viral infections showed linkage with certain antigenic determinants of ABO blood groups and Rh factor. Aim of the study: determine the association between blood groups and Rh factor with COVID19 infection in a sample of Iraqi patients. Patients and methods: This cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted among 580 students of a variety of colleges mainly in Baghdad from 6th of December 2021 to 18th of January 2022. An online questionnaire using Google forms was used to collect the data. Results: A total of 580 samples were collected during the study with 358 (61.7%) females samples and 222 (38.3%) males and there was a significant difference between them (P=0.0001). The mean age of the participants was 20.20± 2.716 years. Of the 580 COVID-19 infected samples collected 289 ( 49.8%) were blood group O. 133 (22.9%) were blood Group A then 108(18.6%) were blood group B, and 50 (8.6%) blood group AB while with significant difference (P=0.). About 508 (87.5%) of the samples were Rh + who had COVID-19 infection and the remaining 72(12.5%) were Rh – (P=0.0001). Conclusions: There was an association between Blood group O+ and COVID-19 infection who did not required hospitalization and the blood group AB+ were less susceptible to infection.
Keywords: COVID-19; Blood group; Rh.